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I touched on this in posts I made elsewhere here, but it seems worthy of its own thread, and besides I'm bored of how these sort of groups always seem to stagnate into Q&A about stuff like "Who has the best free range ferret filets?" or whatever. (and the inevitable mentioning of Berkeley Bowl...)
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I personally spent several years as a fairly strict vegetarian / pescotarian before reintroducing meat into my diet and eventually settling into my current gastronomical outlook, which I find is summed up nicely by the Cantonese saying that...
"We eat everything on the ground with four legs except tables and chairs. We eat everything in the sky except airplanes."
What have others' experiences been like going from one dietary extreme to another? Do you find yourself more or less of an adventurous eater after your carnivorous re-birthing experiences? Did you find that the act of going veggie / vegan itself made you into a more diverse diner, sampling ingredients and preparation methods you had previously been unaware of?
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I personally spent several years as a fairly strict vegetarian / pescotarian before reintroducing meat into my diet and eventually settling into my current gastronomical outlook, which I find is summed up nicely by the Cantonese saying that...
"We eat everything on the ground with four legs except tables and chairs. We eat everything in the sky except airplanes."
What have others' experiences been like going from one dietary extreme to another? Do you find yourself more or less of an adventurous eater after your carnivorous re-birthing experiences? Did you find that the act of going veggie / vegan itself made you into a more diverse diner, sampling ingredients and preparation methods you had previously been unaware of?
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Re: From one extreme to the other...
Fri, April 8, 2005 - 10:26 AM
I'd been veggie for about 7 years, and vegan for 4 or 5 of those. So, honestly, I don't quite remember how I ate when I ate meat before. It was probably more diverse than your average north american thanks to mom & dad.
But yes, I believe I'm definitely more adventurous now; I'm fascinated by the taste & texture of meats, and the different flavours, and I want to increase variety.
Also, I believe post-vegans have already come to terms with the fact that their meal was once a living animal; that is often the basis for not wanting to eat them in the first place. So I'm definitely less squeamish around evidence that my meal was once alive (ie. veins & tendons, feet or head still attached, etc.) than a few of my alway-ate-meat friends who really don't want to acknowledge that their meat was once living, because I'm very conscious that it was every time I eat meat.
And being vegan, I had a tough time separating the ethic of killing, say, a cow vs a cat vs a pigeon vs a lamb vs a wolf. Killing a cow is no less ethical than killing a cat in my mind. So I feel no different eating something 'traditional' like a pig than I do eating something 'exotic' like a pigeon.
